Atlantic Crossing

Last time we left you in Mindelo in Cape Verde, just about to set off across the Atlantic to Martinique. In this post, we will tell you about what it was actually like to do the crossing.

The North Atlantic has been with us pretty much all the way from the UK. Ok, so they call it the Irish Sea, or the Bay of Biscay, but hey its all the North Atlantic really! However, this sail is the one that everyone thinks about and is certainly the one that we have been building up to for the years now. It used to feel daunting, but not so much anymore. All those long sails to get to Cape Verde have been great preparation and practice for the big one.

For the past month I had been watching the weather like a hawk between Cape Verde and the Caribbean. It had been comforting to see the trade winds blowing strong and continuously, and I had started to assume that we would be able to leave anytime we liked with guaranteed winds. Oh how wrong I was! After we arrived in Mindelo, the weather started to change dramatically. Two huge lows appeared in the Atlantic to the North of us and promptly kicked the Azores high out and hoovered up all the trade winds! Oh no! We had agreed to meet our family for Xmas in Martinique on the 22nd December, and now it looked like we were going to struggle to get there in time!

We spent many hours pouring over Windy and took some advice from sailing friends. It looked like if we pretty much left as soon as possible, there might be a small opportunity to get across the pond as long as we headed South from the Cape Verde towards the 10th degree parallel (Mindelo is at about 15 degrees). There would be just enough wind to get us south, and once there, a small band of trade winds would get us across until we decided to sail North again to Martinique.

The decision was made … it was go now, or probably not make it in time!

It actually felt great to be finally leaving. We had plenty of supplies onboard. Probably hadn’t done all the boat jobs we needed to, but we had ran out of time. The crew was in a buoyant mood as we hoisted the sails and glided out from the harbour at 4pm on Wednesday, 30th November, 2022. It wasn’t long until land slipped away to the horizon and we faced the majesty of the Atlantic Ocean ahead of us.

So the main question onboard for at least the first 5 days was “Why are we still heading South?!” Initially we were making good progress in a South Westerly direction, trying to get down to 10 degrees North of the Equator where we hoped to find wind to take us West. The crew schedule had been decided for watches and everyone was settling in to the rhythm of life at sea. No one was sea sick even though it was quite rolly to start with. It took at least 48 hours for everyone to stop feeling quite so tired and get in to the swing of things.

On Day 2 we were greeted by an enormous pod of Atlantic Dolphins, and a pod of as yet unidentified whales (we think pilot whales perhaps) who stayed with us for a couple of hours and entertained the crew with pirouettes and riding the bow wave. Day Three and the wind continued to drop. We had turned further South to try and get to the 10th Parallel but had now slowed right down, so on Day 4 when there was literally only a puff of wind left we decided to drop the sails and take the opportunity to go for a swim in 5000m of water! What an amazing feeling! Quite scary and exhilarating at the same time. We reckon we are now true earth explorers … surely the only people to have ever swam in the ocean here….

Our good friend Charlie had our backs. Our satellite phone was refusing to download the weather, so bless him, Charlie became our weather guru on the trip. Every couple of days he would phone us up and get our position. He would put that in his weather routing software and send us instructions by text message everyday as to where to head for the best wind and sea conditions. Absolutely brilliant! I fully intend to return the favour one day when they cross in their boat Aquamarine. Couldn’t have done it without you mate 🙂

With the light winds we carried on heading South West and on Day 5 we dropped South of the 10 degrees and turned more west much to the delight of the crew. It felt better to be going almost in the right direction towards the Caribbean! The highlight of Day 5 was that Caleb caught two fish!. We had been sailing through the Sargasso weed all day and fish had been all round the boat. The trolling line had been out all day and eventually the fish bit. Two small Mahi Mahi were caught in 10 minutes. It was a delicious dinner!

Down here nearer the equator it was HOT! In the day the temperature soared and the deck saloon heated up nicely. We started to get some wind behind us though but kept having to switch sail plans to adapt to its changing direction by 30 degrees or so on a whim. We also had some large squalls passing through to. Huge angry grey clouds would form in the afternoon and if you got in their way the wind would veer and gust up to 30 knots or more giving us some welcome speed and cooling us down.

We continued to head slightly south of west for several more days and crossed 9 degrees north on Day 8 and finally reached our most Southerly point on Day 10, 8 degrees 30 minutes North of the Equator. For those of you who don’t know what that means, there is one nautical mile in a minute of arc and 60 minutes in a degree, so we were 510 nautical miles North of the Equator at this point. From here on, we pointed the boat directly at Martinique and waited for the trade winds to re-establish themselves.

On Day 11 we reached the half way point! Time for a party! The beer flowed, the party snacks were cooked and Ailsa’s delicious Moroccan Tagine was served for tea. Those not on watch were in bed for 8pm…. rock and roll!

Life on board was pretty sweet. Everyday was easy going with everybody relaxing; reading books; catching up on sleep; removing the flying fish from deck; cooking; eating; drinking; fixing sails and tightening ropes; stopping things squeaking and knocking and the obligatory game of cards called Skip-bo (or sometimes known as Spite and Malice) which became a daily ritual and quite ferocious! Infact that tradition is still going on now as I write this, and scores are being recorded!

Here’s a video montage of daily life onboard Azimuth. It hopefully gives a little insight in to the trip. Dolphins, swimming in 5000 metres of water, putting up the cruising chute, catching fish and surfin’ the waves.

From here on it was plain sailing. The winds started to pick up and become more reliable on a broad reach. The wind gradually increased from 15 to 20 to 25 knots. Azimuth loves “20 knots right up the bum”. And she was dancing along surfing the waves. On Day 14 we passed 3/4 way. This was celebrated with the cooking of a Sunday roast with all the trimmings. A remarkable feat by Ailsa given the way were were being chucked about on the waves at this point!

On Day 14 we also got hot by a huge squall and had an hour of Chaos. The wind peaked at 38 knots and the sea became a torrent of spray and rain. Day 16 and Tom and Ailsa witnessed a new speed record from Azimuth as she surfed down an enormous wave hit 16.8 knots. You could almost hear Azimuth giggling!

The faithful autopilot had been making some strange noises for a few days and on Day 16 it started to make some horrible grinding sounds. The gearbox had all but given up. We were still 100 miles from Martinique at this point, so we decided it was time to hand steer from here. We took turns of 30 minutes each over the next 20 hours. It was actually alot of fun. At night we the star Polaris (the North Star) as a guide against one of the stantions to keep Azimuth on the right course.

Finally that night we sighted land! The lights of both Martinique and St Lucia were twinkling on the horizon and the lighthouse guided us in. We slowly sailed round the South of Martinique and waited for the sunrise to get in to the Anchorage at Fort de France. Infact the last hour was pretty crazy…. 35 knots on the nose and sharing the water with a huge cruise liner and tanker.

The sunrise was magnificent and a toast was drunk when the anchor was dropped. What an awesome sail!! Well done to the magnificent crew!!

Well, what an amazing feeling to have made it all this way. Check out the route on the front page of the website as to the whole distance. Here is the stats for this trip:

Join us next time as we explore Martinique!